Premium WordPress Plugins of the Month: January 2017

April 29, 2018

If you’re looking to take your WordPress-powered website to the next level, perhaps it’s time to introduce some new functionalities. If so, you’re in the right place: Every month, WPExplorer brings you the best of what CodeCanyon has to offer, with five of its top new releases.

The format is the same as always: five plugins spread across a wide range of categories, and each with an affordable price tag. As such, we hope there’s something for everyone here. Let’s dive straight in, with the plugins listed in no particular order…

Disclaimer: WPExplorer is an affiliate for one or more products listed below. If you click a link and complete a purchase we could make a commission.

Admin Menu Tweaker for WordPress

If you want to improve the WordPress admin area, look no further than the Admin Menu Tweaker plugin. Rather than upgrading the WordPress back-end with a stylish skin, the plugin lets you completely overhaul the admin area to your liking.

For a start, the left-hand admin menu can be completely customized – we’re talking a new color scheme, over 4,000 icons, and ten separator styles. More impressively, however, you can actually re-organize the familiar menu layout using drag-and-drop. For example, if there’s a plugin you use again and again, why not put it at the top of the menu for easier access? You can even use this feature to add new items to the WordPress menu.

The Admin Menu Tweaker plugin has another important function, too: you can use it to define the permissions for certain user roles or even individual users. This is ideal for situations when a particular user doesn’t fit neatly into one of the default user roles – such as admin, author, contributor, etc. You can simply tailor that user’s permission levels, giving them the freedom to complete the tasks you need from them. Helpful, right?

Better Page Management Pro WordPress Plugin

Better Page Management Pro is another plugin that enhances and upgrades the WordPress back-end in lots of cool ways. For a start, rather than listing all of your posts or pages in the traditional way, the plugin displays thumbnail previews of each. You can re-order your posts and pages using drag-and-drop, or jump directly to a full-size preview at the click of a button.

Talking of previews, Better Page Management Pro also ships with a responsive preview function. This allows you to switch between mobile, tablet, and desktop view so that you can test how your content looks on differently-sized screens.

The developers are very ambitious, and there are a number of new and exciting features in store. These include dashboard themes, project management tools, custom post type integrations, and several “top secret” features – there are plans to make the plugin extendable, too. This is definitely one to watch and could be a “must have” plugin in the not-too-distant future. Get in ahead of the curve by purchasing today at a heavily discounted price.

Ultimate Elements Bundle for Cornerstone

From the makers of X Theme, Cornerstone is an excellent page builder plugin, bringing the building blocks of its flagship theme in WordPress plugin form. Due to its growing popularity, we’re starting to see a number of Cornerstone extensions popping up – much like we see lots of extensions for Visual Composer. Today we want to introduce an excellent example of one of these Cornerstone extensions: the Ultimate Elements Bundle, aka, the Essential Addons for Cornerstone.

The plugin introduces a variety of new elements, most notably a brand new carousel slider feature. You can populate these carousels with all kinds of content – images, logos, testimonials, team members, blog posts, and even WooCommerce products. Each carousel offers plenty of customization options, too, with a choice of styles, layouts, sizes, and scroll buttons. You can also build a custom color scheme and upload a custom background image for them, giving you a platform to show off your creative flair.

Other modules include an Instagram image grid and, my personal favorite, interactive promos – I strongly recommend that you click the demos to see these in action.

WordPress Multisite Shared Media

If you run more than one website, it can be useful to make your networks as interconnected as possible. WordPress Multisite Shared Media is an interesting new plugin developed for this very purpose.

The plugin’s name is a dead giveaway: it lets you share your images between all of your connected websites. In fact, it applies to anything uploaded to the WordPress media library.

All you have to do is upload a media file once, and then you can access it from any of your other websites. This can prove a real time-saver if you’re regularly re-using images across your entire portfolio.

Kaswara – Modern Visual Composer Addons

Visual Composer extensions are among the most popular plugins on CodeCanyon from both a developer and a customer perspective. There are a number of them released every month, and they immediately jump right up the best-seller lists.

This month, we want to feature the Kaswara addon – an excellent “all-rounder” Visual Composer extension, offering a huge amount of versatility.

For starters, Kaswara introduces a whopping 45 elements. These include:

Countdown timers

Price boxes

Screen splitter

Carousel sliders

New animation effects

Image swap

Image banners

Drop caps

Before-after images

Hover images

Better still, these elements are nearly infinitely customizable, with over 500 shortcode options. This means you can tailor each element to your exact specifications.

The plugin also ships with a Google Font manager, icons packs, and shortcode manager. This shortcode manager is particularly interesting – it lets you configure customized shortcodes, duplicate elements, or even disable shortcodes for a particular element.

If that wasn’t enough, Kaswara also offers Contact Form 7 integration in the form of a live preview tool. This takes the guesswork out of designing and configuring your contact forms. An excellent addon for anyone looking for even more from the core Visual Composer plugin.

Final Thoughts

And with that, we’re done with our first Premium WordPress Plugin of the Month collection of 2017 – and I think you’ll agree, there are some great plugins featured in today’s list. Best of all, each plugin comes in at under $40, so they won’t break the bank. Keep a close eye on the Better Page Management Pro plugin in particular, as there is a lot of potential there with impressive new features to be added.

With hundreds of new plugins released each month, it would be impossible to cover each one. Feel free to use the comments section to share your favorite plugins released this month. And as always, we’ll be back next month with five more premium plugins!